


Dreaming

by Todesengel



Category: Voltron: Lion Voltron
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-28
Updated: 2011-08-15
Packaged: 2017-10-22 16:15:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/239979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Todesengel/pseuds/Todesengel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The future echoes back into their dreams</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sven

Sven is dreaming, curled up in the warm nest he's formed from a long night's sleep. The sunlight slants across his body, and he twitches, just a little, when it hits his eyes, and frowns at the memories of the future it rouses in his mind. And then a cloud passes before the sun and it's no longer torchlight through bars, or branding irons, or the sharp hiss of discharged energy that sears and melts the world it touches, and he sleeps again, with a tiny sigh. In a little while, he'll wake up, slowly, incrementally, and accept that a new day has come. He'll leave his little nest and drive to the base, and there will be an order waiting for him on a small slip of paper informing him that he's been deployed to seek out what isn't really there. He'll meet Keith in the locker room, and there will be a spark between them, and somewhere on Arus they'll forget that they're soldiers and remember only that they're two lonely boys who are a long way from home, and it'll be nice and warm and they'll joke about it without ever saying just how much it means to them both. There will be many changes on Arus, and the closest any of them will ever come to talking about the biggest one of all will be the night they all get drunk and Lance complains that they're going to be the reason his marriage will fail since how could one woman compete with the four of them, anyway, and the worst part is he'll still choose them over her (whoever she turns out to be) even though they won't have sex with him; and Hunk will laugh at that and say that they're all going to end up in the old soldiers' home, boring each other with exaggerated memories of their deeds and chasing after the nurses, except for Pidge who's going to be running the Universe; Pidge will say that'll never happen because who wants that kind of responsibility? but they all know that of them all Pidge is the one with the most future. His hand will find Keith's, then, and Keith will smile over his beer, and he won't care that he knows there's no old soldiers' home for him, because he has this now, and that's the most important thing for him.

He'll go to sleep, and he'll wake up, and somewhere along the line there will be darkness and pain and he'll come back wrong; but Keith will still smile at him, and whisper his name like it's a blessing and a miracle and touch him like he doesn't believe that any of it is real, and they'll muddle through together until it all falls apart like they both knew it would, because they're soldiers. They know they're not going to be sitting on a porch somewhere, old and gray and holding hands, because that's not the kind of life they lead and that's not the death they'll have. And in the end, it isn't warm, or pretty, but cold and wet and muddy and on some distant planet that's too far from home and he'll hold onto Keith as he dies and say his name in a broken wail, and then never say another word again until the enemy finally kills him out of spite.

But that's a long time and a great distance from this bed and this now, and for now Sven sleeps and dreams of growing old.


	2. Pidge

Pidge is dreaming of quarks and quantum and physics and time. He's standing at the foot of a giant equation that stretches up and around and beyond his sight, and he knows that if he could just get back far enough he could see it all and find the answer he's been looking for, find the math that will help him bring back his world and his parents one atom at a time. His sleeping body twitches in sympathetic harmony with his dreaming self and the movement makes Chip grumble and turn, and they don't wake up as they reorganize their limbs until they're still again, tangled up in oversized garments that are almost like swaddling and smell all wrong. He's curled up tight against Chip, who's clutching him back, and for now it makes the women who run the refugee camp whisper _those poor boys_ to each other and walk gingerly, and look at them with pity in their eyes. Pidge already resents them and all the other people who will treat him like he's some fragile sculpture spun out of sugar and ready to snap at a moments touch, which is why he'll join the G.G. as soon as he's eighteen, despite the protests of his teachers and his watchers and his brother who joins with him anyway, because that's the way they are and will always be. He'll be treated like glass there too, because he and Chip are national treasures for revolutionizing space travel in one of their mad attempts to get back to a home that isn't there anymore, and you don't let national treasures out into space; they'll treat him like he'll break until he does snap and starts a couple of fights and even burns down a research facility or two, but they don't discharge him, just foist him off on another bunch of misfits who don't care that he's a genius, or that he's wounded so deeply that he still bleeds, or that he's cut himself off from the world and everything in it except his brother and that empty space.

He'll find himself growing to like these guys, despite himself. Find himself growing to trust them like he trusts Chip and no one else, and that'll make him afraid at first, because life has taught him to trust only his blood. But the second time he'll try to get in a fight with Lance, he won't get knocked down like he did on that first day. Instead, Lance will just look at him, and call him an idiot, and give him a bloody nose when he tries to force the issue, then make him laugh with dumb jokes while he's sitting in the infirmary with Kleenex stuffed up his nostrils. And he'll get chewed out by Keith and things will go on like they had, and he'll remember that this is what a family feels like, which will make him cry until he thinks he's out of tears. But he won't be, because when he's much older and out of the military and over his destructive phase and lauded throughout the Alliance as the Next Big Thing so that his picture appears on every magazine from here to New Balto and he's suave and sleek and in control, he'll find himself standing in front of a glossy black cenotaph they erect for Sven and Keith, and he'll be bawling like the child who lost his home. Tears and snot and it's the picture that the media will choose to use with their soundbite, which will make him wish he was still young enough blow things up with impunity. He'll call his brother instead, and they'll make up for too many years apart, because this will be the second time he's lost his family and Pidge will think that he won't be able to take a third.

He'll be older, then, and won't have dreams of reviving the dead because he'll know by then that that's an impossible thing. He doesn't know that now, and so he dreams of playing God, and when he wakes he will whisper what he's dreamed into his brother's ear and the two of them will find a way to make it through the day.


	3. Lance

Lance is sleeping, which five minutes ago he wouldn't have thought possible, but he's just exhausted enough, and the abandoned animal den he's found at the base of an old tree provides him with just enough shelter from the rain, and he's asleep almost as soon as he's closed his eyes. He's dreaming of the three years he spent in France pretending to be Dominic Keegan, wasting his money in bars and clubs and sleeping in hostels or hotels, depending upon his mood. Those are happy memories, and he uses them a lot, pulls them out and lets them warm him up and remind him that the world isn't always out to fuck him. He won't let himself remember how he got the money, of course -- guilt money, blood money, for letting his parents die out in the hollowness of space. He'll still be able to taste the wine he drank the last time he was in Paris when he will wake up in a still panic at the sound of a twig snapping somewhere close by. He'll kill the soldier hunting him, but it'll be another five days before he's rescued, and he'll dream of France again, and he'll promise himself that the next leave he gets he'll retrace some of his steps, see if that art student he'd fallen in love with is still living in the attic that has that breathtaking view of the Seine. But it won't be this leave, because by the time he's over the pneumonia he picks up from this place, he'll be called upon to serve again, and he'll be itching to go from the enforced inactivity, and it'll be nearly a decade before he'll see France again.

The art student won't be there anymore and they'll have torn the building down to make way for some new modern monstrosity.

He'll be officially retired, then, but not for long, and although they won't let him back on active duty anymore, not with his bum leg that will always ache before it snows and means he needs a cane to move around, they'll be practically falling over themselves to get him to teach, which he'll do and he'll strike fear into the hearts of every cadet who takes his classes; and they'll all take his classes. He'll meet his wife there, too, Haley, like the comet, and he'll be happy for a while but she'll ask to many questions and she won't understand him the way his team did, and he will never be sure if he is the one who leaves or if she is. The next time Keith and Sven stay with him, he'll glare at them and mutter _I told you so_ until they throw him into his pool just to shut him up.

He'll keep in touch with them, like he does with Pidge and Hunk, for a little while at least, and then they'll drop out of sight and he won't think anything of it until he sees their dog tags sitting on the Admiral's desk, and there's talk of a memorial service, and Lance will have been around long enough to know that the tags will mean that there aren't any bodies, that these are just taunts to let the Alliance know that the last dregs of the Doom Empire aren't afraid to spill Alliance blood. He'll want to get in a ship and hunt them down himself, the night after the memorial service, when the booze releases his anger, and it's only because Hunk grabs him tight and says _who'll be my buddy in the old soldiers' home if you die too, huh?_ and kisses him hard and fast, and they'll both be too old to be making out on a couch, and they'll never mention the fact that the first time tasted like pain, and it'll be a little strange at first but become comfortable in time, and every day Lance will wake up and hope they make it to that old soldiers' home Hunk's been promising him. He'll think they will, but he'll never say that because he doesn't want to look soppy.

Right now, as he wakes up wet and alone and hunted, all he's worried about is making it to the next hour.


	4. Hunk

Hunk is dreaming, even though he's awake and lazily scrubbing down Yellow. It's a knack he picked up as a boy growing up on a farm on some middle planet well away from all the wars. He knows it makes him look a bit slow, and so sometimes he twitches the muscles in his face into that particular position just to get people to be careless around him. But that's not what he's doing today, because today it's quiet and still, and he can just dream as he cleans the mud off his lion. Today it's about coffee, which he hasn't had since they ended upon Arus, and he thinks about all the varieties he's ever known. He misses coffee. The Arusian version isn't the same, but he'll drink it every day because he's an addict, and when the war is finally over, the first thing he'll do is buy a café. He'll surround himself with the smell of coffee and he'll cook, and none of his customers will ever know that he used to kill people with his bare hands. He'll prefer it that way, and he won't let Sven or Lance or Keith or Pidge come into his café for at least a year after the war, because he's sure that they'll all look like soldiers and he won't be able to pretend he isn't anything more than the big, smiling man with the booming laugh and the good coffee. But he won't be able to keep them away, and they'll come in and Pidge will make fun of him for wearing an apron in between asking him to take a look at the latest blueprints for whatever new device he's building that will take him one step closer to galactic domination. They'll be over his head, but Hunk will look anyway and feed Pidge sweets until he's buzzing from the sugar rush and has to go take a run to calm down. While he's gone, Lance will write obscene limericks on his blueprints and try to shift the blame to Sven or Keith even if they're not there.

 _Keith's got psychic powers, y'know_ , he'll try to claim, and Pidge will purse his lips and say _well that explains a lot_ and the first time one of his customers makes noises about Keith and Sven being Keith and Sven, he'll go out from behind the counter and pick the man up by the collar and throw him out into the street. It will be extremely satisfying, and Keith will smile in gratitude and Sven will smile, period, and it will make Hunk feel better than he's ever felt before, like he's done something good. He'll always have a place for the two of them, and he'll be happiest when it's the five of them all together and bullshitting each other and fitting together like there hasn't been months between the last time they were all in the same room, and he'll never say a word about how happy this makes him until it's too late and they'll never be together like this again.

He'll make a bad decision, then, and it'll turn out to be not such a bad thing after all, and he and Lance will continue on mostly like they did before, except Lance will come to his café every day until he moves into Hunk's apartment sometime around their fourth year together. Hunk will keep working until he finally gets too old to see properly without glasses, which he'll only get after he accidentally blows up the roaster. They'll move to France, after that, because it'll make Lance happy, and one day in the far future, Lance will wake up and roll over and say _so this is the old soldiers' home, huh?_ and make a big show of looking around before adding _as I recall, you promised me nurses_ and it'll make Hunk laugh like he hasn't since before Keith and Sven left and never came back, and he'll look back on his life and think that he's done all right.

But that's years in the future, and the sunlight has shifted and now Hunk is dreaming of the beer he's been brewing and he thinks that maybe it's ready to drink now, and maybe it will taste like home.


	5. Keith

Keith hopes he isn't dreaming, but he isn't sure, and if he is then he hopes that he'll never wake up again. He's lying mostly on the blanket they've spread, but also a little bit on Sven, and he breathes shallowly, and lets the weight of Sven's hand in his anchor him, and memorizes Sven yet again, and maybe today will be the day that when Sven wakes up he won't have the shreds of a nightmare in his eyes. Today is the seventy-fifth day of the rest of their lives together and Keith is hoping for a million days, but will settle for seventy-six. He doesn't know that he's going to die well before the millionth day, on some distant planet chasing down a Doom resistance cell, killed while grumbling softly to Sven about his knees and not paying enough attention to the ground which hides the mine that makes his aching knees something that will no longer be a problem. But even if he did, he wouldn't care because if it's not that mission that will kill him, it'll be another, and he doesn't fear dying.

But that's the future and today is sunshine and warmth and early summer, and for Keith nothing else exists except this moment and him and Sven and the slow rise and fall of Sven's chest. All he's concerned with is the fact of Sven's living, and he closes his eyes and mouths _I love you_ into the sleep-warm skin of Sven's chest and listens to the beat of Sven's heart.

Seventy-five days when he thought there'd be zero.

Keith will be happy with anything he gets.


End file.
